Emily Chan
In 2021, Sotheby’s sold a different copy of the Constitution for $43.2 million. It was a rare first printing made for the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention.
Seth Kaller, a historic document expert who worked with Brunk Auctions on the sale, noted that the newly discovered copy was “rarer and arguably more significant” than the copy that sold in 2021.
“James Madison wrote that the Constitution ‘was nothing more than a draft of a plan, nothing but a dead letter, until life and validity were breathed into it by the voice of the people, speaking through several State Conventions,'” said auctioneer Andrew Brunk.
“This simple-looking version is what started breathing life into the Constitution.”
Historians think they know how a copy of the Constitution ended up forgotten on Samuel Johnston’s farm.
On September 18, 1787, the Constitution was delivered to the Confederation Congress in New York City after it was drafted in Philadelphia.
Congress debated the document and then agreed to send it to the states on September 28 to make it officially valid.
About 100 copies were created, and some of them were signed by Charles Thomson, the Secretary of Congress.
The copy found in 2022 bears Thomson’s signature. It made its way to North Carolina, where Johnston led the state’s two ratification conventions.
The document was ratified on November 21, 1789, and remained in Johnston’s possession for many years.
